Service users, social policy and the future of welfare

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Abstract
This article considers the issue of public and service user involvement in social policy in particular relation to the increasing importance of populist approaches to welfare policy and ideology. It reports on the new emphasis on participation in social policy and the limits of involvement so far achieved in both the practice and discipline of social policy. It discusses the increasing commitment of welfare service users and their organisations to equal involvement in the social production of social care and social policy and the political and methodological problems of continuing to exclude them. It argues the importance of an inclusive approach to social policy as a discipline and practice both to counter the populism which has increasingly characterised and dominated social policy over the last 20 years and to provide the basis for progressive and defensible social policy for the future.

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